This mystery artifact unearthed during a rehabilitation project at New York City Hall had archaeologists puzzled. Was it a spice grinder? Maybe a needle case? Nope. It's a 19th-century feminine hygiene product: that's right, a 200-year-old douche.

This summer, as workers labored away at a construction site at the southern tip of Manhattan, a…
Read more Read more

"I was working as a docent at the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, and came across a back archive of what they called vaginal syringes," said Geiger, 28. "These were glass or brass, and from later in the 1800s, but all of a sudden, I made the connection."

The device, which dates back to somewhere between 1803 and 1815, would have been used as a treatment for venereal disease and a rudimentary contraceptive. As Lisa Geiger told DNAinfo, "Those solutions they were injecting with these vaginal syringes did affect their reproductive systems, but in a negative way, and that may possibly have helped decrease pregnancy." It was discovered, perhaps not coincidentally, in a buried trash pile filled with liquor bottles and food waste that was probably the aftermath of a big celebration, Chrysalis president Alyssa Loorya said.